Questioning the Relationship Between Pre-Compulsory Education and School Victoria Bamsey: University of Plymouth, Lewis Fogarty: Brunel University, Dr

Association for Professional Development in Early Years

OCCASIONAL PAPER 16 - Questioning the relationship between pre-compulsory education and school Victoria Bamsey: University of Plymouth, Lewis Fogarty: Brunel University, Dr. Mabel Encinas: London Metropolitan University, Mandy Andrews: University of Plymouth.

Introduction As interpretative researchers with an interest in pre- With this unabated bias for change and increased compulsory education, we find ourselves challenging the interference, it is not surprising that there have been far- relationship between education and school. In a time reaching consequences that have re-shaped the sector where 94% of four-year-olds are in some form of funded entirely. There has been an increasing concern with a education in England (National Statistics, 2020) the continued reimaging of what childhood is with a move expectation for children to be in reception classes from such towards entrepreneurialism as opposed to romanticism. a young age is clear. In this paper we question the The purpose of pre-compulsory education has become relationship between education and school in a system of driven by the desire to satisfy neoliberal agendas and to hyperactive policy change (Ball, 2018). By changing the raise international competitiveness rather than by the conjunction between ‘education’ and ‘school’ the focus desire to achieve improved outcomes for children shifts from viewing education as school, to consider (Campbell-Barr, 2014). approaches to education at school, and what education looks like other than school. There is a tension between education policies in England, and the role of early years practitioners, observed, for We would like to share our research into different facets of example, through the play verses 'school readiness' pre-compulsory education through a consideration of dichotomy that is evident in the early years curriculum and parents choosing different forms of education, an analysis everyday practice. The dominant influence of the state, of partnership working through mathematical play in the testing, and ‘datafication’ (Roberts-Holmes and Bradbury, reception class and learning through unsupervised play 2013: 127) has created a downward pressure that brings outside of the school gates. We hope to challenge current didactic teaching and ‘schoolification’ (Ibid, p.127) into thinking that school starts at four and to question the early education. School readiness has become the purpose schoolification of early education. of pre-compulsory education and the essential role of play side-lined in favour of preparation for key stage one tests. Why we are where we are in pre-compulsory education The early years sector in England has now become home to Education has remained a key focus of government policy a vast range of providers operating in a unique childcare and its attempts to create a stronger Britain that can market that lacks parity and transparency. compete within the global marketplace. Through a detailed policy analysis, themes emerge around the impact of policy The misnomer of choice, parent-teacher partnerships and on the purpose of, and practices within, pre-compulsory the role of play has created an environment that has education. These themes are centred around tensions become a challenge to navigate for experienced between education and care and the enactment of professionals and parents alike. The recent phenomenon of pedagogy and curriculum (Neaum, 2016). Covid-19, lock-down and home education has shifted the landscape and brought into question the role of statutory ‘The history of education policy is a mixture of reluctance, assessment tests. Stakeholders trying to make sense of the meddlesomeness, and muddle’ (Ball, 2018, p.209), leading sector are currently experiencing turbulence and inequity, to confusions of purpose and pedagogy, that blur the and questions are raised around the sustainability and boundaries between home, school and pre-compulsory purpose of the early years and childcare sector in the wider education. Knee-jerk policy changes since the introduction education landscape. Our hope is that it may also lead to of compulsory education in 1870 has seen a shift in focus those behind the policy looking up from their desks to see from one of increasing the quantity of school places, to one the benefit of allowing young children to look up from of quality improvement. The introduction of parental theirs. choice into legislation in the late 1980’s had a policy intention of driving school improvement. In practice, the Questioning education as school marketised system of education has driven inequality with Compulsory education does not start until a child is five- a reduced curriculum and a recent concern for children’s years-of age, at which point parents are responsible for mental health (Ball, 2018). ensuring that their child receives ‘efficient full-time education’ (HMGovernment, 1996: .4). There is no requirement for children to attend school in England at all, © TACTYC 2020 - September 1 and what ‘education’ looks like is open to interpretation. ‘logistical nightmare’ of car sharing between numerous Today the phenomenon of education as school is being families, to starting their own Montessori school. Two challenged as increasing numbers of parents are accessing families relocated, and one family changed their work and alternative forms of education for their young child way of life in order to accommodate their Unschooling (National Statistics, 2019). philosophy.

Through a consideration of parental choice in pre- For these parents, making an educational choice for a child compulsory education the narratives of six parents based in at four was not a simple choice of the ‘best’ school based one rural community cast light on the influences and on examination results and OfSTED reports, but was a process of choosing different forms of education at four- relational, dynamic, and iterative process formed through years-of-age. In each of these cases, the parents own intra-actions with experiences, society and things. In this experiences of education became the starting point for way education was not just as school but instead became their narratives before being reworked through their ‘other than’ school, as an embodiment of social practice experiences and intra-actions with the elements and where identities and friendships are formed; education materials of education. Different facets such as the candles does not have to be anywhere. used at Advent, a slide, coat pegs and sand pits became important in the narrative of choice. Even the toilet Education at school embodied an agential role that changed or reconfigured Addressing the continuity and discontinuity between pre- educational possibilities (Barad, 2007), important when compulsory and compulsory education involves an combined with memories as a child having to hold on to the understanding of the relationships between home and seat so as not to fall in, or as a parent worrying about school and between play and pedagogy. When education is hygiene. viewed through the lens of practice at school, past experiences, present needs and potential futures come The activity of choice for these parents was not a choice together in the situated relationship between home and between schools based on performativity but a relational, school. With a recognition that a child’s mathematical dynamic, and iterative process. A Vygotskian (2004) understanding is a strong predictor of a child’s future framework, combined with the more contemporary notions success in school and beyond (Moss, Bruce and Bobis, 2016) of intra-action and diffraction from Barad (2007), revealed education at school is explored through the lens of the complexities of choice with each intra-action mathematical learning. By focusing on the borders between representing a potential point of diffraction or change of home and school, play and pedagogy, the role of the adults direction. At times, the choice to be made became clear as (parents and teachers), working in the ZPD (Vygotsky, 1978) if it were standing in a spotlight, at other times the facet of is a useful theoretical frame to address the complexities and choice refracted or diffracted light, bringing darkness, potentialities of partnership working with parents and confusion, and sometimes the unexpected. Together they learning through play. represented the possibilities, relationalities, and entanglements within the process of choosing pre- The links between play and pedagogy are not smooth, and compulsory education. the distinction between child-initiated play and adult- guided play is central and a place for debate in early years In this way, the process of thinking about education was education. While the former refers to a child’s exploration (re)positioned as an activity based on history, experiences of their ideas and interests, and an active engagement with and intra-action within society. Parents associate their their ‘funds of knowledge’, the latter is associated with the thinking with some things and dissociate from others until facilitation of play and a greater definition of activities by finally thinking transforms all of these separate experiences adults. ‘Funds of knowledge’ provide children with an and intra-actions into an image of education for their child. ‘intuitive knowledge-base’ which teachers could use to What came to matter for each parent was found within the connect learning (González, Moll and Amanti, 2006). In meaning of experiences and materials (Barad, 2007). The practice, both types of play are part of a continuum in which lived experience of choosing pre-compulsory education was the emphasis between freedom and structure varies. The a process of relationalities with the past, the present, and transit between child-initiated and adult-guided play can the future diffracted through intra-active entanglements take place in a fluid manner on an everyday basis in an with history and with materials within society. early-years setting and sometimes both types of play overlap. Overall, their existence shows the ‘complexities of For the parents participating in this research the integrating children’s or adults’ purposes’ (Wood, 2014: possibilities for education were not limited, because rather 151). than thinking about what is, they were thinking about what might be (Craft, 2000). Despite there being only one Research involving the use of a board game to support a primary school within the town the parents within this systematic but playful approach to mathematical learning study were willing to engage in quite extraordinary activity involved parents, children and teachers in one reception in order to realise their educational choice. From a class in England and two early years settings in Mexico

(Encinas, 2018). The board game, Our Shared Common the potentialities of a landscape of playful entanglements Lands, created a boundary object between home and and intra-actions. Observations of one young child in free school that supported collaborative learning in a playful play outdoors exemplified material engagements through context through a series of problem-solving situations in explorations of puddles and light refraction, embodied maths that went beyond counting, sorting and naming understandings of pendulum motion through swinging on a shapes, to involvolving movement, singing, drawing and rope, and an affective response to movement that cannot collaborative challenges across all the areas of the EYFS be controlled. The child acknowledges the smells of the (Department for Education, 2017). Mathematics became a earth, acquires knowledge of soldier beetles’ lives, and how tool to play the board game and for parents to engage in yellow snails struggle waterlogged on the ground after a family learning as they worked in the zone of proximal recent downpour. This child’s play could change in a development (Vygotsky, 1978) with the children. moment, flexing to cues offered by the landscape, and her affective response is clear. With an unfettered closeness to The strengthening of relationships between home and mineral, animal and landscape, there is an immediacy as school through a playful pedagogy emphasised the she became entangled with the material experiences, fundamental role of parent partnership working. Family generating potent intra-actions in flexible dialogue with her cultures may be different to the culture of school, but in the locality. playing of Our Shared Common Lands all parents used their ‘funds of knowledge’ (González, Moll and Amanti, 2006) to The contrast between learning in unsupervised play, and support children whilst also questioning their own planned, purposeful education seen in schools is notable assumptions about how to facilitate children’s learning. and we question how often children are offered a chance to Here, education at school became culturally embedded, just ‘be with’ and know their environs in this way. arising through families’ beliefs, skills, knowledge and their Predicated on a stable future and strong economy, many social practices. Funds of knowledge became funds of current education approaches continue to condition identity, essential for a person’s self-definition, self- children to become part of the anthropological machine expression and self-understanding (Esteban-Guitart and (Agamben, 2004). Although exploratory forays may be Moll, 2014). made into the world beyond the classroom, it is still the case that education occurs largely indoors, or in planned outdoor We argue that education at school needs to bridge the classrooms. Even Forest School now has training structures dichotomies of home and school, play and learning, to that perpetuate transmission models of knowledge recognise the role of the parent in their child’s learning, to reproduction; standards require leaders to demonstrate value different cultures, funds of knowledge and identity. templated den-making abilities, fire management and Education at school should not be about didactic learning planning purposeful activities. Children’s play experiences sitting at the school desk but about a playful pedagogy become formulaic as young lives are directed toward where children learn in partnership with family, friends and predicted outcomes, assessed according to prior criteria. teachers. Through the lens of practice at school, past Children learn quickly to accept these binaries; of work experiences, present needs and potential futures come versus play, human and other-than-human, orderly or together and illuminate the relationship between home and random and undirected, purposeful or not. The school, where a playful pedagogy can support children from transmission of binary values forms a process of acquiring diverse cultures to learn maths while parents and teachers culturally appropriate subjectivities (Hackett and Rautio, work in partnership. 2019) with related moral and ethical understandings.

Education other than school All is not predictable right now and it is time to question this Finally, we question the enlightenment led notions of anthropocentric machine. There is a need to acknowledge purposeful education by considering young children’s different ways of being with the world, and value education learning through unsupervised play. Currently children other than school. ‘We are all in this mess together’ entering early education or school are acknowledged as (Braidotti, 2013: 141) muddling through, drawing on playful becoming part of the anthropological machine (Agamben, potentiality, vital and creative (Lester, 2018). Meaning 2004). Their experiences become planned, purposeful and making and learning in such a model is dependent on the managed and they learn quickly to comply, be quiet, sit still, variances of the material world. Whilst we may be fearful of and experience the work-play, human-other binaries; this unpredictability, the ‘now’ contains a wide range of acquiring culturally appropriate subjectivities. An ‘potentialities’ and intra-active cues that can lead alternative proposition acknowledges the value of learning anywhere. Learning occurs not just in school, but as that occurs outside of school through unsupervised play, experiential entanglements with the agentic qualities of the recognising potent competencies, flexibility and knowledge material world around us. With so many potentialities, it suitable for unknown futures. matters what choices are made (Haraway, 2016). Although teacher and pupil may be ‘in it together’ the teacher role Research involving 26 children sharing unsupervised play could be one of not directing activity but facilitating space experiences led to a consideration of material agency and for entanglement and commutative knowledge, and of

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